Posted on 09/06/2018 5:36:20 PM PDT by BenLurkin
As America entered the age of the atom, it seemed as though there was no problem that wouldn’t be solved without the help of nuclear physics. While atomic gardening was marketed to housewives, the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab was meant for the kids.
The kit included a cloud chamber for viewing particle physics, a Geiger counter for monitoring radiation levels and measuring radioactive decay, as well as radioactive ore.
…
The cloud chamber specifically allowed people to observe alpha particles moving 12,000 miles per second. To make things more fun, he suggested kids play a game of hide-and-seek with a gamma-ray source.
...
When the kits launched, children were generally overwhelmed by their complexity, and Gilbert later admitted that some of the kit’s features may have been a bit advanced for young children at home. As safety concerns mounted, the kits were quickly removed from store shelves, though an estimated 5,000 made it out into the world.
(Excerpt) Read more at ripleys.com ...
I miss the cans of Radium paint that you used to be able to get.
The clock faces had Radium paint. It was neat. When I was a kid in the 70s the cans were surplus. They are long gone now I’m sure.
I had a real chemistry set in the early 60s
I blew my neighborhood off the map
Local news treated me like a celebrity lone survivor and all
My adoptive family have been swell
Even for State fans...
/s
I’m still waiting for my Atomic Bomb ring from the Lone Ranger, the one where you could take off the tail fins, look inside and supposedly see flashes of real atoms jumping around the inside chamber - it never arrived and I sent that b@stard twenty-five cents for it!......
Remember these in shoe stores:
https://gizmodo.com/the-insane-cancer-machines-that-used-to-live-in-shoe-st-789073694
I’m still trying to figure out my Uncle Milton’s Ant Farm.
(My brother had a lot more success with his chemistry set...)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Levine
First thing I thought of. You beat me to it!
I remember a 5th grade science teacher (circa 1057) who once said that, “one day everyone’s home would be nuclear powered; a unit about the size of a water heater would provide electricity, virtually for ever. No more power poles, or power lines.
She was talking way out in the 1980’s, or so.
Boy, that sure didn’t happen, did it? And seeing as how hillary sold all of our uranium, it probably never will.
*sigh*
I'd rather kids be doing physics experiments at home than wasting hours on facebook, listening to "rap" and learning to talk like a ******.
Oooh.
I remember sitting outside on a little brick stairstep, watching ants, when I was a kid.
One ant came out and found a crumb of something I’d been eating.
He went away, crawled into a hole in the brickwork; and in very little time, there was a whole army of ants coming out of the hole and headed for the crumb. They took it apart, and carried it in pieces back into the hole.
They TALK to each other, Dammit!
Gilbert chemistry kits used to be GREAT!
I watched old reruns of that movie, THEM, with my sister when I was a kid. I was scared..
I spent many hours as a kid watching the ants. I would sprinkle some sugar and wait for them to come and take it away. Another thing I did was catch flies and throw them into spider webs. Those spiders were fast!
“They TALK to each other, Dammit!”
Damn straight! It’s interestingly to me that we use brain size as a determinant of likely intellectual capacity, but have been shown clearly by computer technology that very small processors can harbor incredible computational capacity.
the only problem we encountered with a Gilbert kit was when chemicals were inadvertently mixed with stuff from the beauty salon in the basement LOL that was one hella 4:00 AM!
Back in the early ‘60s I inherited my older brother’s chemical kit.
In it was a tube with a strip of uranium.
Lest I forget, my Mom took my temperature with a mercury themometer stuck under my tongue.
Sometime when the outdoor temp gauge broke or the oral thermometer broke I used to play with the mercury blobs on the garage floor.
Fond memories......
Very high cancer rates in the women(Radium Girls) that painted the little dabs of “Luminous Paint” on watch dials and other parts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls
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